Tuesday 26 February 2008

Slide Mailers everywhere....



Trying to catch up with my various slide mailer challenges that are ongoing, here is the latest one, quite pleased with the way this has turned out. One more to go, have got outside sorted but still needing a bit of inspiration for inside. Have four Jigsaw pieces to alter as well, have some ideas but want to try a few things out first - can't bear the thought of ruining the actual jigsaw piece!! Just letting a few things ruminate for a couple of days and then hopefully I will just be able to do them all in one hit.

Friday 22 February 2008

Who says I'm a technophobe?



Have managed to get a slide show of my flicker gallery up and running. Very chuffed with myself though not sure this is the optimum size for the page but can't quite work out how to change anything. This is quite a leap forward as far as I'm concerned.

Anyhow, have been crafting a little bit today - decided to just give up trying to do anything sensible until after half term!! Finished my slide mailer for my friend's birthday plus sent out a few swaps. Not a bad days work but it took 25 minutes in the PO to get stamps. Must work out how to do it on line, how hard can it be?

Thursday 21 February 2008

Battling with FP


Only objective to todays crafting was to finish the slide mailer I need to post on Friday, Make some ATCs for a chain swap and get to the PO. Well I've nearly done the mailer, just drying off, but didn't get to the PO. I did make a few ATCs today but got involved playing with FP and embossing powders. I still haven't mastered the FP, cant decide if I'm heating it too much or trying to work it when too hot/cold. Somehow I ended up with this threesome which is good in parts but some of it nearly descended in to black blobbiness at one point. Of the other ATCs there may be a couple that are worth trading but I'm not sure about sending them for the chain swap. So I didn't quite meet my objectives, but no change there.

Not feeling very focussed at the moment on the crafting front or indeed anything else - too much going on in real life and although I can lose myself for hours I don't really have the time at the moment. It's quite demoralising to see how much other people seem to get done, I guess I must just be a slow crafter. And it's half term!! Love them dearly but they make so much noise, mess and washing up!! On top of everything else the joints of my right hand are hurting - is this the onset of arthritis? Doesn't bode well for any of my jobs or hobbies!!

Wednesday 13 February 2008

And now for something completely different....




Just finished some Zetti postcards for a swap. I really like this style, although some of it is a bit too ugly, I prefer quirky. I found this quite hard to actually sit down and do although I have been looking at images for a few months now, fighting with my son over the good bits from magazines (he's doing a surrealism project for school - OH thinks we are all slightly potty as daughter's current art project involves eating lots of kit kats and chewing gum and sticking the cut up wrappers in to her art folder . I think it's best not to ask.) . I don't have any of the bits and stamps you can buy (I'm not actually sure how I feel about them anyway, I was quite upset to realise people hadn't actually made some of the cool images you see themselves as they were stamps, but that's just my gut feeling. Let's just say I wasn't quite as impressed with some of the artwork I'd seen when I realised that. Doh, probably obvious to everyone but me) so mine is all bits out of magazines and what I can draw/doodle myself. Which is where the problem starts because I'm not a natural artist and I'm not a very 'abstract' one either for want of a better word. I have been trying to 'free' up my work with some different collage lately but the Zetti stuff is that and then some. So I have a way to go to find the style within this style that suits me but it is fun. I've got an old board book I've been preparing to alter which I might try to 'Zettify' and journal if I feel confident enough. Anyhow, this is what I've done so far!!

Thursday 7 February 2008

Oriental Challenge

Made some ATCS using 'masking' technique. This was my first attempt at it and I was quite pleased with the results as it enables you to stamp a main image and background on the same piece of card.

Have been busy this week cardmaking, hosting an 'oriental challenge' on DC (made LOADS of Chinese New Year RAKs!!), catching up with jam swaps, and thinking about my next slide mailer and Zetti postcard challenges. Also booked some courses this week and ordered a few goodies. Looking for red cord I wandered into the knitting bit of our local store where I found a big 'ball' of just what I wanted on special (should last me until about 2020 I think) and lots of interesting fibres. Mmm, knit one purl one has come on a long way since last I looked! Oh dear, more things to spend my pennies on. But such colours! Such textures! Restrained myself because I couldn't actually think what I would use them for but I'm sure I'll come up with something. Anyhow, just thought I'd check in, off to do dinner now.

Sunday 3 February 2008

Lazy Sunday Afternoon....




Made OH do a bit of work around the house and replace the wallpaper at the top of the stairs - been missing since the shower leaked two years ago!! Have got fed up of comments from the milkman. (lol) But this afternoon had a nice quiet craft, finishing off a few bits I started yesterday and getting some stuff ready for tomorrow, as I have my mum and sister coming round for the day for a craftathon, probably the last one I will fit in for a while. I have decided I am going to concentrate on making cards tomorrow as my selection is getting a bit depleted and I have a few special birthdays coming up. So have done lots of stamping and am going to go and get all the bits ready in a minute so I can sit and just stick things together whilst we chat rather than run around looking for a bit of ribbon or something which is what I normally do.

Here are a couple of the ATCs I finished today. When I was working on them I started thinking about how I craft and decided that I am essentially a very lazy crafter. Once I have got a certain amount of stuff out, I really hate getting any more out and tend to finish whatever I'm working on with whatever is to hand, including all the little bits I've cut off other things. Makes for some debatable collage elements I can tell you!! It also reminded me that one of the things I can't stand is pretentiousness - the idea that every piece of art is a meaningful journey from an original thought to an artistic expression of that emotion. It's a bit like the rubbish you read attached to the handouts about gardens at the big flower shows, load of nonsense. Sorry if that offends anyone but I have never understood the need to analyse everything in a metaphysical/ emotional/or whatever way - OK if that's how you work fine, but for me the though process goes more like ........ 'I wonder what will happen if I stick this to this? Oops, never mind, I'll stick something else on top and no one will ever know........'

I've never understood why you need to deconstruct poetry or literature either. Either the words go well together or they don't. I don't really care what the poet had gone through to get to this point, what imagery he was using, whether his choice of vocabulary will reinforce his message, whether his description of an everyday event is really a nod to a wider more universal truth .............. oh well, just a philistine, that's me I guess.

What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday # 798

  Morning deskers, welcome to our weekly Wednesday Blog Hop WOYWW which  is now being hosted at Sarah Brennan's blog. Here's the lin...